Wednesday, 4 July 2012

What: The main brief of this exercise was to take a number of portrait photographs Where: At home, Outdoors
When: In the afternoon, just after about 4.pm. when the sun was high enough in the sky to provide adequate light
How: before we started Lindsay who was acting as the subject and I sat down and looked through a number of magazines, including photography magazines, nation geographic as well as a number of books including one of posing
which was called 500 poses for photographing women.

I did visit the photographer Rankins website and selected a number of his images which I was then able to use as reference. I also managed to view a TV program where he was reshooting classic Hollywood images and I found that listening to his instructions to the models was very helpful as it gave me an idea of how to guide someone quite simply and the terms of reference to use.

Another reference site I visited was the PhotoArts.com forum
Benji. (2008). The Rules Of Portraiture. Available: http://photoartsforum.com/benjis_tutorials_the_rules_of_good_portraiture-t966.0.html. Last accessed 4th July 2012.
where I had a good look at the rules of Portraiture by a member called Benji. Again this was a good reference as it clearly demonstrated some techniques, principles and ideas that I had not encountered.

We made a number of notes on what we wanted to try out and have a bit of fun with. As we worked through the poses we discussed how comfortable she felt as it looked at times as if she did not like the pose.
I discovered that a number of ideas we had discussed did not work out right either because of the limited locations and positions we could obtain as well as some of the ideas from the books not working due to the models having a bit more intent skills.

We started by having Lindsay sit on the wall, I stood across the sunlight so that it would not flood into the lens and so that we could have a better suite of backgrounds rather than the limited hedge and fence.
I sent a bit of time directing Lindsay on her hands as I had read an article in a magazine about positioning of models hands and I used that information when directing Lindsay on how to position herself.

As we moved around the garden I had Lindsay move from sitting to standing to lying down so that I could obtain a number of differing poses; Sometime just getting her to move her hands or her gaze one direction or another helped to make the image more or less interesting. I also moved the camera from position to position, sometimes looking to break my own preconceived rules by using ideas like Dutch angles and deliberately getting in close to her face with the lens.

We had a bit of fun with this, but I did find one important lesson which was that although I may like an image and think that I can use the same pose it will not always work due to lighting/simple positioning or the way the model holds herself.

I have also spent a few hours a week looking over a number of websites at the photography on there.

About Me

I am attempting to complete the OCA Course,Context and Narrative and this is my learning log for this course.
I have fibromyalgia with complications; Neuropathic and Neurogenic pain in my legs and spine and I have a tonic pupil which neither reacts to light nor contracts or dilates. Recently I have been told that this is further compounded by a loss of all central vision in my left eye. This is all making the course a little harder than I expected.